Personal experience through the world of dunking.

Workouts to Increase Vertical Jump

Whats up guys, I have a treat for you today. We’re going to discuss how you can jump higher.

Doesn’t matter if you think you have bad genetics or if you think you’re not athletic or maybe you don’t have access to a weight room. Whatever you may think, the reasons on why you can’t jump higher, put all that aside. Because today we’re going to help you jump higher with our brand new brake through, we found through vertical jump training called, plyo-machanical vertical jump training.

Make sure you pay attention to every single section of this article because it’s important that you understand every single phase, category of this plyo-machanical training. So you can take it with you and start using it at home today to start jumping higher. You don’t want to miss out on anything.

What is plyo-machanical vertical jump training?

It is pretty much unique combination of our jump technique training of our fast action plyos. We are going to really brake down fast action plyos. We are going to discuss why they are different, than just regular plyo techniques. Why they work better than the regular ones that you’re probably doing at home. And then we are going to discuss – never before seeing – vert mechanics. This is a real game changer, so pay close attention to the entire blog post you do not want to miss any of the tricks.

First im going to touch a little of jump technique. So jump training and vertical jump training is not anything new. Nowadays everybody knows about jump techniques, so we had do go back to the drawing board and figure out how we can make to tweaks and more advances in our technique training. To help our athletes to jump higher the competition.

So Im going to show you some techniques that you can try even at home, increase your vertical jump. We’re going to discuss certain drills which are going to be very much helpful to you in your jump techniques.

Jump Technique

Jump technique is the pretty much the art of jumping properly. Having a proper form when you’re jumping. What this is going to do is, this is going to get most out of your jumps. Now, think about this, a baseball player has swing coach, a tennis player has a coach that show them how to swing the racket. Even in golf, they have swing coaches who shows them how to swing the sticks. Basketball players has basketball coaches who show them shooting. How come nobody has jump coaches? Jumping is similar to all of those skills. It can’t be taught or it can’t be learned by anybody to instantly start jumping higher right now.

Technique Drill # 1 – Punch Pad

This is also known as ball of your foot. I want you to think about it quickly, think about if you punch somebody with your fingertips, you think that’ll hurt them? Or what if you use your fists? That is going to hurt more right. It is the same when you’re running or jumping lot of players stay on their toes, they are not staying on your fingertips. Because that’s not a very strong part of your body. But when you move on to your ball on your foot, you’re able to put more force on to the ground.

We want you to focus when you’re running and jumping, on pushing the ground down. Because that means you’re been explosive and you’re really powering through your approach and take off. Now the punch pad doesn’t exists if you don’t have dorsiflexion.

I can promise you, that if you add this technique to your run up, take off you focus on having dorsiflexion. Using that punch pad which is the ball of your foot, powering through the ground and exploding in the air. You’re going to see instant results on your vertical jump.

POGO HOPS (3×10)

Keep ankle dorsiflexed while you violently bounce off balls of feet. Focus on dorsiflexion, exploding through the ground into the air, which gets more speed and force.

Punch Pad Taps (3×10 on each foot)

Here again, stay on the ball of your foot. Train your body to use dorsiflexion when you’re running, jumping. So again you’re powering through the ground staying on the ball of your foot.

Technique Drill # 2 – Core Contraction

Next thing we are going to talk about is a very important jump technique called “core contraction”. Now core strength is important in vertical jump as well. But a lot of players think that it is core strength they completely forget about core contraction.

So what is core contraction?
Stronger your core contraction is, the more speed you can take vertical which means you are going to jump higher. It is very important to have your core contraction down along with core strength. Core strength is going to help improve that core contraction but don’t get it twisted.

One way to practice this drill is, get a team mate and do 3 x10 reps of throwing the ball at each other’s stomach to simulate contracting your core.

Technique Drill # 3 – Brick wall

I would like to call it brick wall effect. Pretty much you’re going to do is use a wall and approach it and take a jump. Take all your momentum vertical instead of horizontal. Sometimes you notice players kinda brake down and ended up jumping forward. But if you do that at the wall, you’re going to bust your face. So be careful and don’t bust your face. Jump straight up vertically and start close like a two-step jump and then you can move out.

Brick wall jumps (1×6) 2 step jumps, then move back as you get comfortable. Take a spot on the wall and focus on that and take a quick two step jump and move back. Make sure you don’t bust face on wall. Be careful!

Now we are going to focus on our arms swing. Problem with two foot jumpers, is when they jump their arms go sideways. But when you jump, you want to keep your arms tight and straight explosive down-up. You don’t need that waste motion of having them sideways. As shown in the picture below, try arm swings, do 10 reps on both arms.

Ok, that’s it for the drill technique phase. Use these 3 sections and use the drills that we mentioned above to help you master the technique. Also refer our previous article on take off fixes.

Fast Action Plyos

Ok you got the basics of jump techniques. Now we are going to take a look at fast action plyos which is really exciting because they are fairly different from regular plyos. The regular plyos, there are going to work on explosive ability in your legs. They only focus on one element of power and exposing your body.

These fact action plyos are different because they focus on excreting lot more force. You are going to have create a lot more force on the ground. You are going to absorb more force than in your typical plyos. They are great plyos, they work in every part of your body that you use in vertical jumping. Typical plyos focus on leg power but our fast action plyos focus are focusing on contraction of your core, allow your back muscle to use in your jump, using your hips and creating that force, with a quick reaction power in your legs.

There is lot to bounding that a lot of people don’t get. Let’s discuss on how correctly to do the bounding. When you’re bounding one of the main thing you should focus is, arm moving. That is the same movement that you are doing when you do one foot jump or two foot jump. Any time you put your foot on the ground, you want to be really forcible and aggressive like we talked about our method of jump training. If you’re doing it in the correct way you will feel sore in your back muscle. If you are not sore then you are not doing it correctly.

Second key point I want to get into is, each time your leg comes around you want to get that hip at least 90 degrees or higher. It will train your hip o strike from a higher position is going to be a stronger, more explosive strike within the ground. So really focus on that. Next point is core contraction which talked about in our jump technique earlier. Each time you striking you want to contract that core. Use some of the drills that we talked above to help bounce and explode.

Let’s talk about how you are supposed to strike. I have seen in many videos and guys when they are striking, with their toe first and they are braking at the knee, this might lead you to injuries. Key point here is using dorsiflexion pointing that toe in the air. In each strike you want to strike with your heal and your leg right up under you and keep taking that momentum forward in each one of your bounds.

Fast Action Plyos Drill #2: Gravity Jumps (10 reps each leg)

We are going to use a box, you can use a chair or whatever you like. This is one of my favorite fast action plyos its really going to train you to use explosion from that position. You’re going to be seated in and exploded off the ground and land on your foot.

Fast Action Plyos Drill #3: Box to depth drop jump (3×3)

You’re going to have your arms back and make it a one motion jump. The important point here is, lots of two foot jumpers throw their hands back and they lose lot of speed because of that. And lose lot of momentum that they can take vertically. You need to be quick as you can, when you go away from ground. You need to spend least amount of time on the ground so you can train your muscles to be in fast twitch and fast fiber as we discussed on my review of vert shock.

Ok, that’s it guys. I really hope my post will help you on your way of becoming a better player. Follow the drill techniques and fast action plyos and strengthen your body and absorb the new techniques into your body. So that you’ll be ready for the competitions to come.